Health checks on order

According to Pete Swan, director for Australian project management specialists PM-Partners group, statistics suggest only up to 30% of projects are successful.

While that climbs to up to 90% for ‘world class’ organisations, the figures suggest there is still an awful lot of room for business if you happen to be offering project health checks and project manager and business analyst capability assessments, as PM-Partners do.

Now, the company is eyeing up the New Zealand market – and on the hunt for local resellers – after making its Project Health Checks and Project Manager and Business Analyst Capability Assessments available through a portal which will allow reseller partners to white-label the product.

"The opportunities for channel partnerships range from consulting companies, hosting and solutions providers to systems integrators,” Swan says, adding that many of the companies are already partners, with PM Partners providing them with project managers or business analysts. "Now they can also resell online Project Health Checks and Project Manager and Business Analyst Capability Assessments.”

The services have previously been delivered in-house by PM Partners, whose clients in Australia include Westpac and Cisco. "Now that we’ve released this version for the channel, we’re looking to establish partners globally,” Swan says.

He says the use of the PM-Pulse portal – the result of a partnership between PM Partners group and Queensland’s Assessment Portal will – simplify things and provide value to resellers along with cost reduction and improved satisfaction for customers.

The online health checks and assessments can be completed in less than half the time of traditional methods, Swan says. Baseline data is available ‘within days’, reducing reporting timelines by up to 40%. "Earlier detection and insight in turn result in increased project success rates and return on investment.”

Swan says as well as providing an additional value-added service for resellers, the Project Health Check ‘could prove invaluable’ to systems integrators. "Many integrators get trapped in organisationally complex projects where their project managers are severely challenged. A project health check gives an objective view of where the project is going wrong without any arguments or finger-pointing, or can simply provide peace of mind for executives by adding rigour to high risk initiatives.

"And service providers suffer the same statistics as the general population.”

He says the company has already had ‘quite a few takers’ for its online offering internationally.